Monday, July 15, 2013

First Week Provo MTC (Rhys)

Picking up his mail on P-day

Hola mi familia,

I’m not going to even try to write this whole thing in Spanish, maybe next time. Thanks for all the letters and (I’m assuming) emails. I haven’t been able to check email yet because our P-day is Wednesday and even though that was our first day, we didn’t get it as a P-day due to all of the work we had to do. Once Wednesday gets here I’ll be sure to email as well. My flight here was pretty terrible, take off was fun and so were the occasional dips and the landing. Overall though, it was just really small, cramped,and it smelled like you’d expect it to if you crammed plenty of people into a small airplane.

I met up with Jance and Sarah just fine and we drove to Provo. We ate at a place called Burger Supreme and when we ordered the manager asked if I was on my way to the MTC. Obviously I answered yes and my meal was free. Several of the workers there even asked me where I was serving. Sarah and Jance showed me where Jance is staying now and and where they both would be staying once they’re married. Oh! By theway, fry sauce is a huge thing in Utah, a fry dip that’s just ketchup and mayo. Blech! Anyways, the place Sarah and Jance are going to stay is just down the road from the MTC.

Once they dropped me off,I got shown around and given my badges and whatnot. After that was my first class of the MTC and we had to ask permission to speak English. I met my companion, Elder Smithson and my district (Elders Cannon, Mcrory, Johnson, Olsen, Carter, Russon, Eberhard and Epperson). What’s really weird is that Elders Cannon (DL), Mcrory, and Smithson (with whom I share a room) all look vaguely familiar. Oh and Spencer Slaugh was my Zone Leader when I first got here and it was nice for both of us to see someone we knew. It was pretty awesome. What’s odd is that I already have lost my first companion to the intermediate class. Elder Smithson is pretty good at Espanol. Just a head’s up to all of you planning on serving a mission; I know you can’t know for sure where you’ll be sent,but pick a language (more likely than not, Spanish) and learn as much as possible. Study it and I don’t mean study as in just learn, but really study it to it’s core. Conjunctions, tenses, infinitives, and so on will come in handy. Anyways my Spanish has noticeably improved which isn’t saying much, but still bien.

We’ve had a few firesides and devotionals, the best of which was Brother George Durrant’s. Sunday’s sacrament service was really really weird as my first Sunday without you guys, but I survived. If you couldn’t tell already, this letter has been in progress for a number of days. It’s hard to find time here to do anything extra. I also haven’t been able to get any pictures as of yet due to the tight schedule, but I’ll get as many as I can as soon as I can. My P-day is Wednesday so we’ll see if you even get this first (probably not). I’m writing now fromthe eighth and I’m a tad interested how my birthday will be tomorrow, different is the only thing I’m sure of. The MTC cafeteria (jumping all over the place here, sorry) is alright, occasionally surprisingly good. The whole cafeteria smells like a school cafeteria though and that can put my whole appetite a bit off. I don’t want to say anything negative though, ‘cause most of the food is really good, particularly the cold cereal.

My teacher when I first arrived was Hermano Doug, but he was just subbing for Hermano Payne who was on a honeymoon or something cause he got married two months after getting back. Hermano Doug was awesome and amazing and he’s going to teach at the Mexico City MTC in about two weeks. It’ll be awesome if he ends up teaching Kegan, Hermano Doug is great. Also, starting on our second day each companionship had to start teaching an ‘investigator’--actually one of the teachers here, but an investigator to us--and he speaks only Spanish, it’s been interesting to say the least.